EW: "A big, enjoyably nasty piece of work . . . . What bodes well for Boardwalk as a weekly endeavor is that its Scorsese-fancy pilot is the weakest (the showiest, the slowest) of the episodes I've seen. The production becomes more sleek, emotionally complex, and sly in its subsequent hours. . . . Unfortunately for Buscemi and Boardwalk, there are important precedents to which it should be compared. Is this show better than William A. Wellman's The Public Enemy (1931) or Howard Hawks' Scarface (1932), both Prohibition-era gangster tales? No, it's not. . . . B+"